The Eight Degrees Of Ignorance And Stupidity
Jan 9, 2022 0:50:03 GMT -5
Post by Berean on Jan 9, 2022 0:50:03 GMT -5
The Eight Degrees Of Ignorance And Stupidity
BY TYLER DURDEN
SATURDAY, JAN 08, 2022 - 09:30 PM
Authored by Darren Smith via JonathanTurley.org,
Our host on numerous occasions makes a strong case in labeling today’s zeitgeist as “The Age of Rage”. It would certainly seem to be so if one focuses on what stereotypically comes out of the news media and political figures we lend our ears to. Yet I would go a step further and suggest the root cause of some of this rage is composed of two elements: power-lust and simple human stupidity.
I believe many people fail to recognize how intertwined is the lust for power and the enabling forces of stupidity. Stupidity can be manipulated to achieve that power. It is said that money is the blood of the powerful. Yet, why spend money when too many can be so easily controlled or recruited for free simply by instead appealing to ignorant or stupid individuals.
Both sadly and obviously however, ignorance and stupidity is not limited to the news or politics, it is manifest in human society generally. The trick is to recognize and extricate it from our lives whenever possible. So in a mostly cynical and possibly comical study of the problem, I propose there are levels and flavors of both ignorance and stupidity and to apply such a study is a first step toward minimizing its damaging potential.
If you could excuse the pretense, I might suggest this study to also be corollary to Carlo Cipolla’s “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity“. I will then attempt to quantify Ignorance and Stupidity into both cardinal and ordinal enumerations. For those unfamiliar with Mr. Cipolla’s laws, here follows a basic primer:
Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
While I believe Mr. Cipolla’s laws provide some interesting insight, it treats stupidity as an absolute; that is, without a gradient as to how badly it manifests. So I offer to you, the reader, a possible method to quantify ignorance and stupidity so that you may successfully counter it in a reasonably measured fashion.
Continued at link
BY TYLER DURDEN
SATURDAY, JAN 08, 2022 - 09:30 PM
Authored by Darren Smith via JonathanTurley.org,
Our host on numerous occasions makes a strong case in labeling today’s zeitgeist as “The Age of Rage”. It would certainly seem to be so if one focuses on what stereotypically comes out of the news media and political figures we lend our ears to. Yet I would go a step further and suggest the root cause of some of this rage is composed of two elements: power-lust and simple human stupidity.
I believe many people fail to recognize how intertwined is the lust for power and the enabling forces of stupidity. Stupidity can be manipulated to achieve that power. It is said that money is the blood of the powerful. Yet, why spend money when too many can be so easily controlled or recruited for free simply by instead appealing to ignorant or stupid individuals.
Both sadly and obviously however, ignorance and stupidity is not limited to the news or politics, it is manifest in human society generally. The trick is to recognize and extricate it from our lives whenever possible. So in a mostly cynical and possibly comical study of the problem, I propose there are levels and flavors of both ignorance and stupidity and to apply such a study is a first step toward minimizing its damaging potential.
If you could excuse the pretense, I might suggest this study to also be corollary to Carlo Cipolla’s “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity“. I will then attempt to quantify Ignorance and Stupidity into both cardinal and ordinal enumerations. For those unfamiliar with Mr. Cipolla’s laws, here follows a basic primer:
Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
While I believe Mr. Cipolla’s laws provide some interesting insight, it treats stupidity as an absolute; that is, without a gradient as to how badly it manifests. So I offer to you, the reader, a possible method to quantify ignorance and stupidity so that you may successfully counter it in a reasonably measured fashion.
Continued at link
